Raw/ECW Report
10th November 2008
Manchester MEN Arena
Report by Liam Jones, PWTorch.com correspondent

This was my first live WWE show and I’d give it an overall thumbs up.

The show started around 7:45pm and opened with Todd Grisham and Matt Striker taking their positions at the ECW announce table.

John Morrison came out to his theme, followed separately by the Miz, then finally Jack Swagger to take part in a 6-man tag match against Cryme Tyme & Tommy Dreamer (who all came out together). Tommy nailed Miz with an evenflow DDT then went for the same on Morrison, which was countered into his finisher for the three count.

Promo by Matt Hardy on defending against Finlay which is coming up later.

Local jobber came out, to no music, for the start of the next match. I think his name was something like Oliver Minney. It was announced that he was from Leeds for the local pop. I found this strange as Leeds is a historic rival of Manchester going back centuries, “War of the Roses” etc. But I suppose us little Englanders are all the same to the WWE!... anyway, he was followed out by Henry w/Tony Atlas for a quick squash match. Henry is massive in person, absolutely huge… next I will be saying that the sky was blue today, but bear with me. Todd Grisham entered the ring afterwards to ask Henry who he thought would in the upcoming title match. He shook his head in disgust and left.

Final match of ECW was the title match up. Finlay came out first w/Hornswoggle. Matt Hardy followed to, what I’d say was, the biggest pop of the night (strangely I thought because I personally don’t think he has as much charisma as half of the roster). Quite a lengthy match, which took a while to get going but picked up towards the end. Hornswoggle was knocked off the apron at one point and sold an ankle injury. They ended the match with a nice back and forth exchange. Finlay with a few failed Celtic Cross attempts which culminated in Hardy hitting the twist of fate for the clean win.

And that was the end of the ECW show. No backstage segments were shown, no Teddy Long even (I guess they are saving on the airfares due to the recent financial announcements…).

Next up… RAW. Quick set change. Cue Lillian Garcia with the national anthem. She sang the tiresome dirge that is God Save The Queen well. Announcers then came out – Michael Cole to scattered boos and Jerry “The King” Lawler to a nice pop and a Jerry Springer style “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry” chant (at which point my girlfriend, who is new to WWE, understandably asked “who’s Jerry?”).

Batista came out to his entrance and pyro to start the show. He cut a promo about wanting to cash in his title rematch clause tonight. Stephanie McMahon appeared on the Titantron to say that weren’t going to happen tonight as Shane has booked Jericho vs Cena at Survivor Series…and that match WILL take place as planned. She said that Batista can cash in on his rematch clause after SS. She appeased the disgruntled crowd by mentioning that Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels would face each other in a Last Man Standing Match later this evening and that Kane vs Rey would take place in some kind of no-DQ match (possibly No Holds Barred).

Randy Orton then appeared on stage and made his way to the ring to tell Batista to wait in line for his title shot as he is next after Cena. Orton said how he was better than Batista 4 years ago and is still better than him today. Batista challenged him to a match later, which Orton accepted. They exchanged words again, with Orton goading Big Dave about losing the title after only 8 days. Batista, having lost the battle of wits, kicked Orton in the gut and went for a Batista Bomb. Orton escaped in the nick of time and rolled out of the ring.

Santino was next out, he cracks me up. He tried to get the crowd against him by saying he was from “the best European country… Italy”. He then introduce the “HonkaPerfectMounty” meter. In which he combined the IC title reigns of, you guessed it, The Mounty, Mr Perfect and The HonkyTonk Man. They totalled 123 weeks. He informed the crowd that in just 2 years and 4 months, he would beat their combine reigns and cement his place in history as the greatest IC champ of all time. Out came William Regal w/Layla for the hometown pop. This match was surprisingly shorter than the ECW squash match. Regal with a running knee to the face, 1-2-3. New IC Champ. Santino deserves better than that. Regal then took the mic with some corny spiel about how he will take the spirit of the UK fans back to the USA with him. Eurgh.

D’Lo Brown was next out to face Mike Knox, which Knox won in about 1 minute. Knox badly needs to locate his razor.

Backstage, Santino was outraged at his loss and was telling Beth Phoenix how he had been on the telephone to Shane to note him of his displeasure. But in doing so he had angered Shane into making a match for Beth… vs Mickey James with the Women’s title on the line. Beth threw Santino’s phone against the wall. Harsh! Santino is just comic gold in his timing.

Lengthy Cena hype video.

Jericho then came out to no music, and therefore little heat, acknowledging the nice “John Cena story” that we just saw. He then told the crowd about the “Batista Story” and “The Shawn Michaels Story”, talking how he has beaten both and then skimmed through his feud with Michaels.

Next match was Kane vs Rey in their No-DQ match. Kane kicked out of a 619 but was beaten by a high risk move from Rey (looked like a spin kick of sorts). Rey seemed to be favouring his arm after the match.

Backstage segment with Orton, Cody and Manu. Cody and Manu weren’t happy that Orton put Dibiase on the self last week. Cody slapped Orton pretty hard, Manu stopped Orton getting to Cody. Strange 3-man sandwich. Pretty awkward.

A Limo appeared and familiar music played as JBL, sporting a neck brace (Tombstone Piledriver after effects), came out to give away some money (£1000 to be precise - nice touch considering they’ve just released Elijah Burke, Dykstra and Lena Yada!). He asked Lillian to come to the ring as “someone who is used to doing things for money”. He mentioned bailing Britain out of 2 world wars etc, the usual JBL hometown schick – although he’s very good at it! He brought a member of the crowd out, wearing a Manchester City Football (Soccer) Shirt. He teased him about their more successful rivals Manchester United then asked him to name 5 presidents to claim the money. Which he duly did. JBL informed him that there was one more question to answer… Name the vice presidents of the presidents he had named… ouch! He couldn’t so JBL berated him about not knowing enough about the great USA…

Out came Cryme Tyme to steal the money. They offered JBL the chance to get the money back by answering 5 questions of their own. This went on a while and the crowd were shouting “boring” at this point. JBL answered one question with “Sorry, I don’t talk Jive”. Only JBL would dare say something like that. Cryme Tyme then proceeded to give the £50 notes away to the fans in the front row after informing JBL that he had been “Jacked”. A fan was kicked out around this point after being overzealous trying to get the money! Bad segment saved by JBL’s mic skills.

Batista came out to his second entrance of the night (and 2nd pyro) for his match with Randy Orton. As Orton approached the ring, the “Priceless” theme played and out came Cody and Manu. Cody informed everyone that he is better than Batista and would prove it by beating him there, thus taking Orton’s place. I didn’t think that WWE would give away Orton vs Batista for free somehow, although I wouldn’t have been shocked. Anyway, Cody got in more offence than I thought before being dispatched with a Batista bomb and a 1-2-3. Manu then ran in and was met by a spear.

Beth Phoenix w/Santino vs Mickey James was next. Mickey kicked Santino to the floor from the ring apron but was beaten suddenly by Beth. Santino celebrated by picking Beth up on his shoulders, he looked pretty shaky – I was sure he was going to drop her but he didn’t oblige. At this point a fan’s sign was taken from him for displaying the slogan “I’d rather be in Phoenix”. I mean, whats wrong with that exactly? Manchester was pretty dull and rainy today, I’m sure the weather in Arizona is much nicer this time of…Oh… the dirty rotten scoundrel!

A lengthy Michaels/Jericho feud vid aired.

The champ came out first (I don’t like that at all, its just wrong on so many levels) for the last man standing match to some cheers but mostly boos. Michaels came out to a big pop. Strange seeing a 43 year old man coming out to music claiming to be a sexy boy…

The match got off to slow start. Lots and lots of counting done by the referee (one of the reasons why this is one of my least favourite style of matches). Eventually they fought up the ramp and on to the bonnet of the English Hackney-style Taxicab that was by the entrance of the set. Jericho had Michaels in the Liontamer on top of the Taxicab… cool spot.
Michaels then introduced a ladder to the fray. After a bit of back and forth with the ladder, Michaels set Jericho up on announce table and planted an elbow off the ladder onto Jericho which sent them both crashing through the table and onto the canvas.

They both made it up before the 10 count (at this point the ref had started counts on about 10 different occasions, and got up to 9 on a few of them – leading to a v.slow paced match). JBL ran out and targeted Michaels. He was backbody dropped over the guardrail, into the fans. Michaels then hit Jericho with Sweet Chin Music and stumbled backwards, JBL suddenly appeared from behind the rail and cracked Michaels with a vicious chairshot. Jericho made it to his feet first for the victory. Good match, despite the tedious/predictable counting.

The show ended here.

JBL then came out for a “dark segment” as Michaels rolled back into the ring. JBL picked up a chair and was about to clock Michaels with it after a brief exchange. Michaels blocked the chair shot and hit JBL with Sweet Chin Music before posing/soaking up the fans’ chants to send the crowd home happy.

Biggest Pops:
Matt Hardy
William Regal
Cena (via Video)
Shawn Michaels
Barack Obama (appearing on one of the numerous videos played)

Biggest Heat
JBL
Jericho
… there weren’t that many boos really. Orton got more of a pop than heel heat.

Overall thoughts in bullet points:
I was really impressed with the show and the presentation of it.

-The venue is much smaller than you imagine when you are watching it on the TV.

-Crowd was 70% kids.

-Some “Hi MOM” (Men on a Mission? Oh, they mean mother) signs in the audience. We say “Mum” in England, last I checked. Ever the pedant.

- Good effort put in by all the wrestlers.
Value for money.

- Jericho and JBL are great heels, shame there isn’t more of them.

- Disappointed not to see tag champions Kofi and CM Punk but you can't have everything - overall a really good show.

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